Why Did US Presidents Before Trump Reluctant to Go to War with Iran?

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON—Former US Secretary of State John Kerry sparked widespread attention during his appearance on The Briefing programme with former White House spokesperson Jen Psaki on 10 April. In the interview, quoted from Al Jazeera on Friday (8/5/2026), Kerry disclosed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had for years continuously pressed US administrations—from the George W. Bush era, through Barack Obama, to Joe Biden—to launch a military strike against Iran. Yet all those presidents rejected it, except Donald Trump. Kerry’s statement raises a major question: if Trump indeed supported a hardline approach towards Iran, why did he not actually carry out Netanyahu’s request during his first term? The answer can be found in the memoirs of Mike Pompeo, former CIA Director and Secretary of State in Trump’s first administration. In his book, Pompeo wrote that the then-Defence Secretary James Mattis, along with the Pentagon bureaucracy, was deeply worried if a conflict with Iran truly erupted. “Mattis once said to me: ‘Michael, if we go up against Iran, they will control the escalation, and we will end up in a very bad situation,’” Pompeo wrote. Before Mattis, Robert Gates, former Defence Secretary under Bush and Obama, had also warned that a US or Israeli military strike on Iran could have “catastrophic” consequences and instead drive Iran’s nuclear programme further underground, making it even harder to stop.